ISLAMABAD – Photographs taken about an hour after the US assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons.
The photos, taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pakistani garb and one in a T-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths.
The official, who wished to remain anonymous, sold the pictures to news agency Reuters.
None of the men looked like Osama bin Laden. US president Barack Obama decided not to release photos of his body because it could have incited violence and been used as an al-Qaeda propaganda tool, the White House said yesterday.
The earliest photograph seems to have been taken on May 2nd at 2.30am, about an hour after the completion of the raid in which bin Laden was killed.
Other photos, taken hours later at between 5.21am and 6.43am, show the outside of the trash-strewn compound and the wreckage of the helicopter the United States abandoned.
The pictures are also taken in sequence and are all the same size in pixels, indicating they have not been tampered with. – (Reuters)